I hate my clothes today.  Getting up in the morning is hard enough. Then, you have to get dressed.

 

As a society we are all judged by various and sundry items.  One, the clothing you wear.  Now, I am an old hippie.  Dressing up in high school was totally verboten.  You just simply didn’t do it.  A pair of well worn levi’s was the standard. Any t-shirt thrown on worked.  If it was raw in a few places, okay for that.

 

We used to buy the Levi’s brand new. Back then, you couldn’t purchase jeans of ANY brand that were pre-washed, stone ground or distressed.  You had to do it yourself.

 

My particular methodology for breaking in a new pair of jeans was as follows, and I did it RELIGIOUSLY.

 

First, wash in the hottest water possible. Remember, Levi’s back then were 100% cotton denim. They shrunk in certain places, and in very predictable ways.  You always purchased Levi’s by waist/length back then. They didn’t even MAKE Levi’s for women yet, so every girl knew her men’s Levi size.  The jeans would shrink exactly ONE INCH in the waist and TWO inches in the length.

 

Then, put them on and up to soapbox hill after a good rain.  We lived in Northern California back then, and rain was somewhat predictable.  At that point, drink a bit of good, cheap Red Mountain Wine, ($.99 a gallon) and roll down soapbox hill and mudslide for about, oh, three hours or so.

 

Come home COVERED in slimy, gooey, mud.  Take the jeans off in the garage and prop them against the garage wall, for about a week or so.  Go in and take a shower.

 

Next week, take the jeans and put them out in the driveway or any other graveled location.  Lay them out most carefully to not knock the mud off.  Drive over them again and again.  Really GRIND them into the gravel.  Get out, turn them over. Do it over and over on the other side.

 

Take back into garage and leave for another week, to, you know, age them.

 

Wash in HOT water six times with a bit of bleach. Dry in dryer as hot as the heat will get.  Put them on each night for two weeks and wear them to bed.  (they were all button fly back then, and it was VERY IMPORTANT that the buttons opened with one jerk).

 

Finally, after ALL of that, you could actually WEAR the jeans to school.

 

But now. Age 51.  Still in Levi’s. Still in button fly. But now, I buy them predone.  Now, I wear them with a nice shirt and a blazer.  Don’t you LOVE blazer’s?  They turn any pair of jeans into a semi formal acceptable business wear outfit.

 

Well, at least at MY job I can wear them as semi formal business wear.

My daughter in law gave me two pair of Levi’s the other night.  It’s rather funny, she brought them in, happy that she had two pairs of actual Levi’s for me. She looked at the tags and said, One a size 10 and the other a size 13.  My husband and son burst out laughing.

 

Not because of the sizes, per se.  Because they were (sit down) WOMAN’S JEANS.  My son kindly told his new wife, “She has NEVER worn a pair of women’s Levi’s in her life.” The poor child looked confused.

 

They (boy and hubby) both know my male Levi size.  I am a perfect 34/30.  Sad, isn’t it?

 

I put the size 13 on this morning.  Now I know why I wear MEN’s Levi’s.

 

Women’s simply do NOT fit my weird body.  I have NO BUTT.  I have instead, all the stuff that SHOULD be on my butt, on my lower belly.   AS in below the belly button. Gross, I know.  Oh, I am not THAT fat that I will cause a car wreck crossing the street when people turn their heads to stare.  Fact is, I don’t even look fat. But, trust me, I am.

 

Men’s jeans fit my body. Simple as that.  I got the size 13’s on, zipped and am wearing them.  But there is this THING (they call it now a muffin top, because it is all the fat that the jeans have muuushed up out of the top of your jeans and which is now spilling over just like the muffin batter out of the cupcake pan), this HUGE roll of fat hanging out of the top of my jeans.

 

I feel rather like a sausage.  So I had to find a top that DID NOT show the fat roll. The muffin top.  The grossness.

 

Finally, four shirts later, I found something that almost, but not entirely, didn’t HIDE it at all. Fortunately, I had a red blazer which coordinated well with the offending top and hid the bulge which wasn’t hidden by the top. 

 

And, fortunately the high today is only 57, so I should be able to keep the blazer on all day.

 

At that point, I ran a brush through my hair, brushed my teeth, forget totally about make-up, because after all THAT trauma, I couldn’t POSSIBLY deal with all that and off to work I went.

 

I do look in the mirror occasionally, and I will NEVER been seen in spandex. EVER. I did, the other day, unknowingly commit the ultimate faux pas.  I wore my FAVORITE 14 year old Levi’s.  Unbeknownst to me, there were two holes in the back, you know, right on the inside of the back where the back pockets are sewn on.  And, I had on PINK underwear.

 

You can dress me up, but you cannot take me out.

 

Ah well. Life is like that.

 

Happy hump day everyone.